Bad Weather - For Luck

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

Fishing tales

I fished last summer on a lake in the east of our region. The day turned out to be hot (temperatures under 30 degrees). It was hovering, and it seemed that heat enveloped everything around in a thick sticky veil. Birds fell silent, butterflies disappeared, and only grasshoppers chirped restlessly in the coastal grass. In a folding aluminum boat, I drifted slowly along the reed beds in search of carp.

And they, of course, were found in the lake, since I saw how numerous bubbles and spots of black agitated water appeared among the grass here and there. Undoubtedly, it was the crucians who fed.

I fished with two rods, casting them in opposite directions. From time to time, crucians (or other fish) pecked. But these were not bites, but a sheer misunderstanding! Judge for yourself: the float jerks a little and freezes or jumps and goes to the side, and suddenly stop. You never know when to hook.

As a result, either I was late and the bait was eaten with impunity by the fish, or, on the contrary, I was in a hurry, not allowing the fish to take the bait reliably. Naturally, everything passed by… fish. Such fishing is nerve-racking and tiresome.

Swearing what the white light of the intractable crucian carp stands for, I decided to get out to the middle of the lake to try to find fishing happiness there. Conceived - done. Having planted a grasshopper on the hook of one fishing rod, and a piece of crawling on the other, I threw the tackle, closed my eyes and … dozed off.

I woke up from the fact that my boat rocked so that I almost fell into the water. He opened his eyes and was amazed: instead of the gentle sun, the whole sky was covered with a dark gray gloom. And instead of complete calmness, there are solid vortex curls on the water.

No sooner had I realized that the weather had changed so abruptly than lightning zigzagged over the forest wall on the eastern bank. And then there was such a rumble that I shuddered and even instinctively ducked. Without wasting a second, he began to row frantically, directing the boat to the nearest shore.

However, I did not swim even twenty meters when a wall of water fell on me. In a matter of moments, I got wet, as they say, to the skin. The downpour gushed so that even the opposite bank was not visible.

Fearing that my not very stable floating craft was about to capsize (although the lake is shallow, but there is an exceptionally viscous bottom), I thrashed my oars with all my might, gradually approaching the shore. Meanwhile, the thunderclaps intensified, and the rain gushed more violently.

When I somehow got to the coastal thickets, I suddenly remembered about fishing rods. They need to be pulled out of the water so that the lines do not get caught on driftwood or get tangled in the grass. Pulling one of them, I felt that the line was not giving in. In my head immediately flashed: "Hook!"

Move the rod to the right-left - do not move. And only when he pulled the line towards himself, it immediately weakened. My soul relieved: the tackle was free. But the line suddenly pulled up again, and it became clear that there was a fish on the hook.

In the pouring rain, under the thunderous cannonade from the sky, illuminated by flashes of lightning, I began to fish out the fish. And in the end I managed to get a kilogram crucian carp out of the water. Having stuffed the fish into the bag, I took up the second fishing rod, again one more crucian carp became my trophy, however, much less than the first. “Why not try again?” - I thought and, not paying attention to rain, thunder and lightning, I decided to fish in bad weather.

Having hardly planted a caddisfly on the hook, he threw the tackle literally into the wall of rain. Not even a minute passed when I felt that someone unknown was pulling the line. Hooked, and the third carp fluttered in the bag. Without delay, he straightened the crumpled caddis flies on the hook, and again threw the tackle.

The rod was hit immediately. I hooked up instantly, but the fish came off. I threw again, and again hit, hooking, but there was no fish. Then I threw the tackle in the other direction. The fish pecked without delay, but it was already a weighty perch. Then one by one they took crucians. True, every time they are smaller and smaller.

I don't know how long it took until the heavenly abyss began to calm down. Thunderclaps receded more and more to the west, the pouring rain turned into a small seedling. Alas, as the weather calmed down, so did the bite. And when the last drops fell on the water, and the wind drove away the clouds, the biting stopped completely. And no attempts to revive him helped.

Only when I took the boat (or rather, made my way) through the water jungle and was about to step on the ground, did I feel how heavy my bag was. Despite the fact that I got wet, chilled, the fish in the bag made me happy and warm. And the angler doesn't need more …